Defend your every breath
by saoirseronans
Summary: "Toby's blood was pumping furiously too; he could feel it jumping so viciously that he was sure it was inking a tattoo onto the insides of his veins, a tattoo of the one name that meant so much to him he was fairly certain it was written on the inside of his heart. He had been gone from her for a week." Spoby oneshot, probably an AU. Rated K.


_Hey everyone! Wow, it's been a very long time since I've posted anything on here, let alone anything PLL related. My exams are all over now and I only have half a term left of school so I hope to be writing a bit more now! I have a Clato AU idea in my head that I want to get started on writing soon, so if you're a fan of that pairing then you might want to stay tuned for that ;) The idea for this story popped into my head almost two months ago and I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get it written, but stuff kept coming up. It's set about a week after the events of 4x24 and will probably end up being an au eventually but everyone needs cute Spoby airport fluff at some point, right? I hope you guys enjoy this little one shot and, if you do, please leave me a review maybe? It would be much appreciated!_

_Thank you! Isabelle xx_

_(P.S. I wrote this listening to 'Light' by Sleeping at Last (it's also where the title comes from) so if you really want to cry when reading this you may want to put that song on. You're welcome!)_

* * *

Toby hated flying. It was unnatural, he thought, to be so far about the ground with no way of getting back down again if you needed to. Even as a little kid, on a one off visit to Canada with his mother to visit some old relatives, who existed now only as vague, musty-smelling fog in his memory, he had been wary of boarding the huge jumbo jet at the airport. With one look at its powerful engine humming so loudly it made his ears pop and its large, widespread wings supporting the huge, white body of the plane, he had hung back, chewing anxiously on his bottom lip.

His mom had been just about to start boarding the steps with the other passengers when she had realised he was not right next to her, where he had been just minutes before. 'There's nothing to be afraid of,' she had crooned gently, when she saw how afraid he was. She had walked back along the busy airport corridor to crouch down beside him and brush a trembling tear off of his pale cheek. 'Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.' Then, tucking his hand into her palm, she had led him up the metal steps to the plane door and they had kept on holding hands until the plane's wheels touched back down on the runway back home.

He had only boarded the plane that day because she had been there, holding his hand and promising never to let go, that there was nothing to be scared of. That she would always be there for him. She wasn't there to hold his hand now.

* * *

When he had first boarded the 10:59pm flight to London, Gatwick, from Philadelphia airport three days ago, he hadn't really been thinking straight. His mind had been full to the brim and overflowing with thoughts that were all about Spencer: thoughts about where she was, what she was doing and above all, whether she was safe. It wasn't until the plane had taken off and he was half way across the Atlantic ocean that he seemed to fully register that he was in the air. In a plane. Above the ocean. The air hostess had been kind enough to find him a paper bag to hyperventilate into.

Once he had landed in London and found himself on the curb outside with an overnight bag and a scrap of paper with what he hoped was Melissa Hastings' work address on it, everything suddenly seemed very real. London was big. Like really big. The buildings weren't as tall as they were in Phily, but the street system was completely different and the tube line maps looked like some toddler with fluorescent marker pens had been let loose all over them. The people there weren't especially friendly either. He approached several people in pinstripe suits walking down the streets with his piece of paper and tried to ask whether they knew the building. All of the had quickened their pace and avoided his eyes before he had gotten out the words 'excuse me'.

It had taken him over than 3 hours to find Spencer's sister, sitting at a desk as wide as a dining table on the sixth floor in a high rise office block, sipping coffee. She has spat out her mouthful when she had seen him coming across the room, though, and quickly stumbled to her feet.

'Toby?!' Melissa Hastings had half-screeched in horror, as Toby waved at her, hesitantly. She had grabbed him by the hand and dragged him into a storage closet before he even had the time to formulate the word 'hello'. No wonder Melissa fitted in so well in London.

'What the hell are you doing here?' she had hissed at him vehemently, while fumbling around on the wall for a light pull and tipping over several brooms and mops in her haste. 'What-'

She had broken off abruptly, as if whatever thought she had been verbalising had been replaced by another, far more urgent one, and her head had whipped back around to look at him, fear suddenly burning in her eyes. 'Oh my God, is it Spencer? Is she in trouble?' Melissa had stepped closer to him and Toby had instinctively taken a step back. 'Oh my God,' Melissa had repeated quietly. 'Is it Alison?'

'What?' Toby's heart had skipped a beat. 'Why would it be about Alison?'

'Because-' Melissa had broken off again. She shook her head, but it did not seem to be directed at him. She had taken a deep, shuddering breath. 'Never mind. Is it about Spencer?'

He had nodded.

'Is she in trouble?'

He had resisted the urge to laugh out loud then. _God, Spence, are you ever_ not_ in trouble?_

'Toby!' Melissa's voice had been shrill as she called him back to Earth. Her hand had snatched the sleeve of his jacked and tugged it sharply. 'Is my sister in trouble?'

'It's Spencer,' he had admitted. 'And I think...' He had hesitated, choosing his words carefully. Melissa was Spencer's sister and the two were more alike than either would have liked to admit.

'I think she needs you,' he finally chose to say. Melissa had fallen quiet at that but then, after a pause, she had opened the closet door and stalked out, her chestnut curls flying off her back. He had hastily followed her, admittedly after tripping over a mop and bucket and hurriedly shoving them back upright in the closet.

'Melissa, please,' he had begun to say to her back as she bent over her desk, but she had interrupted him.

'Take this,' she had said, fumbling with her purse zip and shoving a few £5 notes at him, 'and go get some breakfast. Meet me back here in an hour and we'll talk more then.'

'I don't need-'

'_Toby._' She had given him a look that reminded him so eerily of looks her mother had given him on regular occasions that he submitted and had scurried out of the building as fast as he could. When he had returned an hour later, with a hot, buttery crumpet in one hand and a coffee in the other (dark, but with three sugars, Spencer's Saturday morning order from The Brew back home), the receptionist had very kindly told him that Melissa Hastings was gone.

* * *

It had taken him several days to find a flight back to Philly that wasn't fully booked. When he finally did, it was on a low budget airline which would arrive home in the States at some god-awful time in the morning when no one, not even birds, should be even thinking about flying. It should have sent his stomach spiralling into fits of nausea at the mere thought of it but, to Toby, none of it mattered. He was going back to Spencer. If it had gotten him back to her sooner, he would have taken a para-glider made of rope and sugar paper back to Rosewood. He passed the flight itself in a half-feverish daze, his fingernails tapping so fervently on the back of the seat in front that a pissed looking woman with a wailing baby on her lap turned around and told him to stop in language so colourful Toby could still feel his ears singing as they landed. Or maybe that was just the air pressure.

He stumbled off the plane slightly dazed, blinking in the harsh, artificial lights of the airport and breathed in the cool, damp smell of the night. It was just past 3 a.m. Outside the high glass windows of the airport, he could see that the sky was clouded over and it was painted in shades of dusky navy and smoky grey. The moon was peeking through the wisps of cloud like there was something it wanted to see beyond them. Inside, the airport was practically deserted. The few passengers who had been on his flight had quickly diffused into the night, leaving him to trek down past baggage claim with only a janitor and the grumpy lady with the baby for company.

Toby could feel the veins in his temples throbbing as he dutifully followed the janitors steps down the corridor towards the exit. His blood was pumping furiously too; he could feel it jumping so viciously that he was sure it was inking a tattoo onto the insides of his veins, a tattoo of the one name that meant so much to him he was fairly certain it was written on the inside of his heart. He had been gone from her for a week. Toby's feet started to move without any direct instruction from his brain and he sped up his pace.

Finally, the strobe-lit corridor broke off into the arrivals hall. At this ungodly time of the morning, there were a surprising number of people about. There were a handful of cab drivers holding cards with various names on clustered together and a few lone travellers, their cases by their sides, asleep on benches. All around him, people fresh off their flights were being reunited with their loved ones – mothers wiped away happy tears from their faces as they hugged their sons tight, couples kissed with their arms interlocked, brothers and sisters talked over each other excitedly in a collective familial babble. Toby turned away from them, his heart aching.

He stood there in the entrance for a while, until the janitor grunted at him to move. The travellers left, their arms around their family and friends, already recounting their stories and adventures. The cabbies slopped off too, dragging their name cards with them. As the throngs of people cleared, Toby noticed a girl who had been among them. She had her back to him and was walking slowly away, her posture slouched and dejected. Her shoulders were sloped and her arms were hanging limply by her sides. In her hand, she held her own piece of paper, which she was clutching so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

Toby's heart skipped a beat.

The girl had long dark hair that hung half-way down her back in glossy curls that bounced in time with her hips when she walked. She was dressed in baggy jeans that had cuffs that stopped just above her ankles and an oversized oatmeal cardigan, with a skinny tan belt tied above it. Her bright red converse shoes had ribbons instead of laces twisted through the holes. Toby had helped thread those ribbons. He had sniffed the shoulders of that cardigan and breathed in its warm, vanilla smell. He had weaved daisy chains into that hair and let it slide through the gaps in his fingers like water slipping just out of reach.

Toby stepped forward, hope building in his throat like a drum beat. 'Spencer,' he said.

The girl stopped abruptly. Slowly, she turned back towards him and it was all Toby could do to hold back his sobs. Spencer looked even more beautiful than she had when he had left for London, if that was even possible. He watched as the hope on her face turned to disbelief and then, as her feet began to move slowly towards him, to pure and utter joy.

'Toby.' She said his name like it was a promise, a covenant that had been sealed between two people who loved each other more than they could ever loved anything else. Toby started moving.

They met half way across the arrivals lounge. Spencer had lifted her arms to throw them around his neck and Toby let his slide under her ribcage to pull her close to him. Her momentum as she threw herself into him lifted her off her feet and her full weight was pressed against Toby. He lifted her clear of the ground and spun in a staggered circle, his fingers gripping the back of her cardigan, breathing in that oh-so-familiar smell of vanilla as he burrowed his head into her neck. Toby felt tears prick at the backs of his eyes and fought to hold them down. _Spencer_, he thought, gripping her close.

Eventually, she slid down his body so her feet found the floor again and their arms detached. Spencer's eyes were brimming as Toby reached up to gently catch one singular, shining tear as it fell onto her cheek. Carefully, he tilted her chin up to his face as her hands reached up to cradle the back of his head. When he kissed her, he could feel all the tension that had been built up inside her melt out of Spencer as she drew closer to him. God, if he could, Toby would take all her fears, all her anxieties and take them on his own shoulders, carry them for her. Her lips tasted like tears and strawberry lip balm and he didn't want to pull back from her but he had to. He had to breathe.

Once they had separated, time seemed to speed up.

'What the hell are you doing here?' Toby demanded, cupping her face in his hands and scanning it. There was a pinkie-finger length scratch just below her left eye that looked maybe three days old. Her cheeks were flushed but cold and that cluster of freckles behind her ear were still there. 'How did you know I was-'

'I didn't,' Spencer interrupted him, knowing what he was thinking, just like she always did. Her hands came up to clutch at his arms, her fingers rubbing him in circles as if she was still making sure he was real. 'I-I didn't know that you were coming back today-'

'Then why are you here?' he asked, his confusion mounting.

'I've been...' Spencer struggled and bit her lip. 'I've been coming up when every flight from London comes into Phily. I've got the flight timetable pinned to my wall and since Melissa got back I been coming in just in case...'

Toby's breath caught in his throat. 'Spence...you've been coming up to Phily for every flight in from London? Since last weekend?'

'There's one on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 2:34 pm and 3:03 am on-'

Toby shook his head in disbelief. 'Wait. Wait, I'm confused, why would you-'

'I had to know whether you'd come back!' she blurt out, bouncing on the balls of her feet. 'I mean, when Melissa came back and said that you'd gone to see her in London, I didn't even know whether you'd...' She cut off her sentence and bit her upper lip hard. Toby felt the air leave his lungs as she avoided his gaze.

'Spence,' Toby said gently. She looked up at him, her eyes glinting in the bright light. There was so much expression in those eyes, so much emotion. He had always loved that about her; it only took one glance into her eyes for him to understand exactly how she was feeling. 'Why would you ever think that I wouldn't come back?'

She pulled back from him, tucking her hair behind her ear, the way she always did when she was feeling overwhelmed. 'I don't know, I just... I've brought so much pain into your life, I thought...' She sighed and dragged her hand across her face. 'Maybe it would be easier for you to just stay away from me.'

Toby's heart dropped into his shoes. 'Spencer,' he said again, letting his mouth cushion the word. 'You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Ever since I met you-'

'Ever since you met me,' she interrupted, 'you've just been caught up in my unending nightmare. You've been accused of murder, you've been a social pariah in your own town, you've been openly targeted by a crazy bitch trying to punish me for some stupid things I did in the past... well, actually, you've been caught up in my mess long before I even met you – it was because of me that your sister ended up blind and you got dragged off to juvie and-'

'No,' Toby broke in, the word coming out fiercer than he had intended. 'No,' he repeated, softer this time, 'that wasn't you. That was Alison.'

Spencer froze. Her body caved inwards and she seemed to shrink before Toby's eyes, she shoulders clenching and her hands crossed over her chest. For a moment, her mouth hovered, partially open, as if she wanted to say something, to open up and tell him something that she knew. Then the moment past.

'Listen to me,' Toby said, gently, stepping closer. 'Spencer, listen to me. My life was an unending nightmare long before you came into it. After my mom...' Toby trailed off, tears blurring his own vision. 'After I lost my mom,' he tried again, blinking the tears back, 'I couldn't tell anyone how I was feeling. I didn't have anyone with me anymore, to hold my hand when I got scared, to look out for me. Then you came along, and suddenly I had someone.' He took a breath. 'Spencer, ever since I met you, you've been dragging me out of that nightmare. Yeah, it's been slow and a bit of a bumpy ride and sometimes, if you look at it from a different perspective, it looks like all you're doing is taking me out of one nightmare and into a new one...'

Spencer's lower lip began to tremble and a tear leaked out of the side of her eye. Toby lifted a finger to brush it away before it tricked down her chin. 'But that's not how it looks to me.'

She lifted her head to him, her eyes shining with hope among the tears. 'It's not?' she whispered, her voice heavy with anticipation.

Toby shook his head. 'Absolutely not,' he whispered back, stroking her temple. 'I love you, Spencer and I would not swap the time we have had together for anything in the world. Not even if it meant I had some freaky idyllic life where I could take a beautiful girl on a million fancy dates without some crazy thing getting in the way...'

'Okay, that's not fair, we have been on _some_ dates,' Spencer broke in to protest, just as Toby had known she would.

'...because that girl wouldn't be you,' he finished. 'And I only want you, Spencer. You're the other half of me, my best friend, the person I care about most in the entire world. And I swear to you, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe, I will make sure anyone who tries to hurt you is taken as far away from you as possible, I will defend every breath you take for as long as I live because _I love you_.'

Spencer's smile had slowly grown as Toby had continued his speech, until it reached from one ear to another. Toby leaned his head forward so that both their heads were touching and their smiles were mirrored.

'And that's never going to change.'

'I love you too,' Spencer murmured.

'Good,' Toby replied. Spencer gave a sob which turned into a bubbling laugh and surged forward into him so that her head was pressed into his shoulder and her arms locked behind him, holding him close to her. Toby wrapped his arms around her back, tightening their embrace and kissed her forehead, as tenderly as he could. They stood there for a long time together, long enough for Toby to breathe in the soft smell of coffee and washing powder that always seemed to wrap itself around Spencer, enveloping her, and feel the familiar curves of her body slot back into their place by his side, like two missing jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Sniffing, Spencer finally pulled away from him and wiped her nose on the back of her hand, probably painfully aware of the attention they were drawing from the late-night airport dwellers. Toby watched her, smiling. Suddenly, his eyes were drawn down to the paper she was still carrying, scrunched up in her fist.

'What's on that?' he asked her, nodding to it.

'This?' Spencer's cheeks flushed and she hid the paper behind her back. 'It's nothing, just some stupid thing...'

'Spencer-'

'Really, it's nothing...'

'Spencer,' Toby repeated, holding his hand out but unable to stop smiling long enough to look stern.

'Fine,' Spence muttered, reluctantly handing it over to him, a small pout on her lips. 'Actually, you kind of already got it, so...'

Toby smoothed the crinkled paper and turned it over. It was like one of the signs the cabbies held up, with names on for the people coming off the planes. But, instead of having 'Toby Cavanaugh' written on it, the words 'the other half of me' had been scribbed on in Spencer's loopy, black writing. Toby traced the lettering with his index finger, feeling the hot burn of tears at the back of his throat.

'It's how I think of you,' Spencer ventured, hesitantly. 'And I guess that now I know that's how you think of me too-'

Toby didn't let her finish. In one fluid movement, he crossed the short distance between then and reached around the back to her head to pull her close and kissed her, hard. Spencer's mouth stopped trying to form words and instead gave in, folding into his own mouth, eagerly responding to his touch.

'Don't you ever, ever think I won't come back to you again,' Toby said, his voice husky, drawing back from her. 'Promise me.'

Spencer nodded. 'I promise,' she whispered.

Relief flooded through Toby's veins and he let out a deep breath. 'So, uh, did Melissa get here okay?' he asked, remembering the actual reason he had gotten on the plane to England in the first place.

'Uh, yeah.' Spencer brushed a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. 'Yeah, she did.'

Toby eyed her, suspiciously. Something was wrong. 'What? What is it?' Panic began to stir deep in his gut, before Spencer flashed him a quick, reassuring smile.

'Nothing. Nothing, it's just...' She grinned ruefully. 'We kind of have a lot to talk about.'

Toby smiled again. Yeah, his life might look like a nightmare to some people, but when he lived it with Spencer Hastings, how bad could it really be?

'Perfect,' he said. 'When can we start?'

Spencer's hand found its way into his palm. 'How about right now?' she asked, a sly grin spreading across her face. Then, giving his hand a small tug she turned away and started leading him to the exit. Toby smiled, and allowed her to lead him out of the airport and towards the train station. As they went, Toby could feel the warmth from Spencer's fingers seeping through his skin and up to his heart, making its regular thump beat faster and faster.

As Spencer opened up to him, as she told him all that had happened over the past few days, Toby felt something stir deep inside him and he knew, he just _knew_ with all the certainty in the world, that he would follow Spencer to the ends of the earth, if that was where she needed to go. No matter what happens, he vowed to himself, I will always be there to hold her hand.


End file.
